The next week in Parliament is bound to be tumultuous, but I believe all MPs should remember that some of us have spent the summer fashioning the tools to enable the United Kingdom and the EU to agree a deal.

In July, the Prosperity-UK Alternative Arrangements Commission – for which I chair the 20-strong panel of Technical Experts – published its final report intended to avoid the need for the infamous Irish Backstop, while ensuring there is no hard border in Ireland, the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is upheld, and the UK is able to pursue an independent trade and regulatory policy after Brexit.

The Prime Minister mentioned the report approvingly in both his meetings with the German Chancellor and with the French President. On Friday, Suella Braverman MP led a delegation of experts from Prosperity-UK to meet Stephanie Riso, Michel Barnier’s deputy, to brief her on our proposals.

Our next step, announced yesterday, is to try and fix the Political Declaration, in order to create a new Withdrawal Agreement which could pass in Parliament. We are seeking to consult interested stakeholders on the interim version and will publish a final version in due course.

The Boris Johnson team will know that the Political Declaration was written by the previous government team with a very specific goal of using the backstop as a bridge to some sort of customs union with high regulatory alignment, both of which would essentially negate any serious sort of independent trade and regulatory policy for the UK. Boris Johnson campaigned on the ultimate end state being an advanced EU-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA), something he has called SuperCanada, and others have called Canada ++.

While sticking country names on trade deals is not perhaps the best way of describing them, the point is that his administration wants the UK to have a comprehensive, advanced FTA with the EU, a commercial treaty between two sovereign entities and not one which puts Britain in a position of legal subordination to the EU.

We know that the EU ultimately wants to have a comprehensive FTA with the UK, with Irish border facilitations, customs facilitations and regulatory cooperation. It should therefore, in theory, be easy for both sides to revise the current inadequate Political Declaration to reflect this. At the same time, it will be necessary to change certain parts of the Withdrawal Agreement to make it technically consistent both with the new Political Declaration and a new Alternative Arrangements Protocol for the Irish Border.

Amongst other things, these changes are reflective of a huge change in direction by the UK government, from the May to Johnson administrations, which the EU may not have fully internalised yet. Whereas the previous government regarded the backstop as a bridge to an end state which would be some sort of subordinate, hybrid customs union arrangement with high regulatory alignment, the new government thinks the end state should be an advanced FTA with regulatory cooperation, but with the capability for the UK to diverge, so that it can preserve its independent trade and regulatory policy. This is a sea change in approach.

In summary, our redrafted Political Declaration reflects that the final end state should be an FTA. The UK’s sovereignty over matters like Geographical Indications (GIs), currently in the Withdrawal Agreement, should be placed where it belongs in the end state agreement. Changes to the defence and security sections, to reflect the UK’s sovereignty and not limiting its choices vis-à-vis the rest of the world, should be made.

The Withdrawal Agreement should be amended to allow for a transition period, during which the UK can negotiate, sign and ratify trade deals (as it says now), but which also critically provides that both parties will be bound by general principles of good regulatory practice in this period, in order to make sure that the EU does not regulate in the transition period in a way which damages the UK’s interests. It would be difficult for the EU to reject the principle of good regulatory practice embedded, as it is in various OECD documents to which the EU has itself made valuable contributions. Similarly, it would be difficult for the EU to reject the idea that what GIs the UK protects is a matter for the end state FTA between both parties. There will clearly be a GI chapter as the UK will want to protect Scotch Whisky and other key GIs it has.

The Withdrawal Agreement has been amended to reflect the fact that the level playing field obligations have been mutualised and pave the way for similar obligations in the ultimate FTA itself. Given how often these are agreed among parties to FTAs now, the EU cannot seriously object to them.

Many MPs voted against the deal because they rightly feared that Theresa May’s Government would move directly from the deal to an end state negotiation based on the Backstop being activated. It turns out they were quite right to be fearful. If they are to vote for any kind of deal, they will need to know with certainty that the end state of an FTA is not in doubt and the government will be strenuously negotiating in the UK’s interest for the most advanced, comprehensive and liberalising FTA, fully utilising the fact that we have regulatory identicality on day one of Brexit, and thus management of divergence is the key regulatory issue. This message can be communicated with the Political Declaration, and the EU will at least know what the UK wants, something it has rightly complained about in the past.

We have a limited amount of time to put a package on the table, which can pass in Parliament while being an eminently reasonable offer from the UK that the EU can get behind. Prosperity-UK has fashioned the tools, the parties must put them to use.

Only a credible non-cooperative strategy that cannot be blocked by either the EU or Parliament will get us out of the EU by 31st October 2019. And that strategy needs to be executed with ruthless conviction and commitment by the new Prime Minister. To demonstrate his support for Global Britain, his first trip abroad should be to the US to kick-start the UK-US Free Trade Agreement.

As the largest ever list of candidates to offer themselves as the next British Prime Minister has been whittled down to the final two, it is clear that we are in grave danger of validating Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Between them, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have said that they will: renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and the backstop; leave the EU with a ‘deal’ on 31st October; and get parliamentary approval for their new improved deal. They both claim to be skilled negotiators, implying that this makes them ideally suited for the most important job in their career. There are differences, however: Johnson recognises that the WA as a whole is dead and just wants to lift some of its acceptable features, such as on citizens’ rights; while Hunt is prepared to delay leaving the EU for ‘a short while’ to achieve a ‘better deal’.

The naivety of the candidates’ positions is breath taking. Have they not observed how easily the EU has run rings around our current ‘skilled negotiators’? Are they like the Bourbons and learned nothing and forgotten nothing?

The new Prime Minister needs a credible negotiation strategy

It is going to be déjà vu all over again, unless the new PM has a clear strategy to leave the EU on the basis of what game theorists call a non-cooperative solution. That is one that the EU cannot block if it is not willing to cooperate in producing a solution that makes both sides better off.

This means that the starting point for any negotiations with the EU cannot be the WA. The EU says that it will not renegotiate this and it remains completely unacceptable to the vast majority of the British people. As Chairman of Lawyers for Britain, Martin Howe QC, says:

‘I can’t think of any clause in the WA end-to-end which is actually in the interests of the UK. The only neutral part of the agreement is the reciprocal rights of UK and EU citizens, in which the clauses on substantive rights are acceptable. However, even those are surrounded by completely unacceptable requirements that the treaty must perpetually have direct effect and must (as interpreted by the courts) override future UK Acts of Parliament in our own courts, and must be “interpreted” by the European Court of Justice for about 10 years by direct references and thereafter via a back-door mechanism in an international arbitration clause’.

His devastating criticism of the WA is here: Avoiding the Trap – How to Move on from the Withdrawal Agreement.How a British Prime Minister could collaborate with the EU to produce this document and how so many MPs could subsequently vote for it is beyond me. The WA is nothing less than a venus flytrap. It therefore needs to be avoided at all costs.

In any case, the WA does not offer a ‘deal’ about a future relationship in any meaningful sense. For example, there is nothing on services which account for 80% of UK GDP. Trade in services will be negotiated after the UK leaves the EU. It is completely bizarre for MPs to object to leaving the EU without a deal, when the WA itself involves leaving the EU without a deal.

A non-cooperative solution requires the UK to specify both the terms under which it will leave the EU and the terms under which it will trade with the EU in the future. And to do so in a way that the EU cannot block.

Theresa May specified the leaving terms very clearly in the Lancaster House speech in 2017. They were to leave the Customs Union, Single Market and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. In other words, a clean Brexit. This was a clear deliverable strategy that did not require EU cooperation. But then Remainer Philip Hammond stepped in and said there needed to be a transition period which would require EU cooperation and this was the beginning of the backtracking that led to the toxic WA and the equally toxic Political Declaration (PD).

The non-cooperative solution involves three steps. And each one has to be credible to the EU

The first step is for the new PM to restate that the clean Brexit set out in the Lancaster House speech will be implemented by 31st October 2019. This is credible and does not require EU consent.

In parallel with this, the new PM should immediately inform the US President that the UK will enthusiastically take up his long-standing offer to negotiate rapidly a US-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA). This also is credible and does not require EU consent once we leave. During the few weeks that remain before 31st October, the UK can make much progress in setting the stage for post-Brexit negotiations – a task that the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has consistently dragged his feet in doing. This will send an electric shock to the EU that will tilt every aspect of subsequent negotiations with the EU in our favour. The prospect of us concluding an FTA with the US when the EU has been struggling for years to achieve this will motivate the EU to conclude an FTA with us. They will fear the fact that the UK would be able to import virtually all of its requirements from the US and at lower world market prices. This would signal to the EU that we can leave them behind if necessary.

The second step is to set out in a new Departure Statement (DS) how the principal issues involved in departing from the EU will be implemented: citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The PM can guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK without granting them the special status of the WA. He can agree to pay our financial obligations up to the point of departure. Any additional money is not a strict legal requirement but can be used as a bargaining tool in negotiations about the future trade deal – as the EU is fond of saying, ‘nothing is agreed, until everything is agreed’. Let the EU take the UK to international arbitration if they want. Finally, he can restate that the UK will not impose a hard border. All these are credible and do not require EU consent.

The big advantage of being absolutely clear on the border is that it will force the EU and, in particular, the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to agree a workable solution that allows the UK to leave the Customs Union and Single Market at the end of October. Solutions exist to protect the integrity of both the UK and EU internal markets without any physical infrastructure on the border or any need for new technology. The Smart Border 2.0 report commissioned by the European Union Parliament from customs expert Lars Karlsson confirms this – as does the more recent report of the Alternative Arrangements Commission. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Angela Merkel’s successor as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, has said that a workable solution could be agreed in five days of discussions. There were discussions between British and Irish customs officials on creating an invisible border, but Varadkar stopped these when he came to power. In doing so, he politicised the border issue and turned it from being the EU’s Achilles’ heel into the UK’s – ably abetted by collaborating British ‘negotiators’.

It was this single issue that was then exploited in order to propose the backstop comprising a ‘single customs territory between the (European) Union and the United Kingdom’, without rules of origin. Northern Ireland, in addition, would have to abide by the rules and regulations of the EU Single Market. So long as the backstop is in operation, the UK would have to meet ‘level playing field conditions’ that prevented the UK competing against the EU. The UK would not be able to leave the backstop without the consent of the EU.

This, of course, is completely unacceptable. By making it clear that the UK will leave the EU on 31st October, the positions are immediately reversed. Both the EU and Varadkar have said that there will be no hard border. Varadkar would be forced to restart the discussions between British and Irish customs officials. He knows full well how devastating for the Republic’s economy a ‘no deal’ Brexit would be: the Irish Central Bank predicts a 4% cut in GDP and 100,000 job losses. And there are plenty of five-day periods between now and the end of October to agree a workable solution. But it requires the UK side to make it absolutely clear that we are leaving on Halloween, come hell or high water. This too is credible and again does not require EU consent.

The third step is to make a Future Relationship Statement (FRS), setting out the terms on which the UK will agree to trade and cooperate with the EU. Again, this has to be done in a way that cannot be blocked.

There is only one set of trading terms that the EU cannot block. Under WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules – which almost all international trading arrangements follow – we are free to set the tariffs and product standards for trade with the EU, so long as these are the same as for all members of the WTO under MFN (Most Favoured Nation) rules, unless we have a FTA with any country or group of countries. This is the default position, so is also credible and does not require EU consent.

We can actually do better than that and offer the EU to continue trading in goods on current zero-tariff terms under Article XXIV of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and in services under Article V of GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) – while a full FTA is negotiated. But if they refuse, we can temporarily revert to the MFN rules under Article I of GATT.

The EU will ultimately agree to a FTA. In the meantime, we need to exploit the fact that the UK has a huge trade deficit with the EU – we are net buyers of goods of around £100 billion, equivalent to 5% of our GDP. Since the customer is king – and we are the customers – it should be us who decides the quality and prices of the goods and services we purchase from not only the EU but from the rest of the world. But what the WA and PD do is to allow the EU to determine these things. The audacity is astonishing. Did the EU and our ‘negotiators’ seriously believe that they could get away with this – and not just in the short term but indefinitely?

Since we will no longer be bound by the EU’s Common External Tariff, we can lower the tariffs we set on goods that we do not produce domestically. But whatever tariffs we set, the EU will be worse off given that they sell us mostly high-tariff goods like cars and agricultural products. We would pay tariffs to the EU of around £5 billion and they would pay tariffs of £13 billion. In addition, we would save the £11 billion net contribution to the EU.

This provides a strong incentive for the EU to agree a FTA, unless they want to continue punishing us for leaving the EU, and in doing so damage the EU economy even more. Given that we have a services trade surplus with the EU of around £30 billion, it is essential that this is secured in a future trading relationship. This means a SuperCanada deal, already offered to us by the EU in March 2018.

But although there is a strong economic incentive to agree a FTA, we cannot force the EU into accepting any deal that works for us in terms of services, and, in particular, financial services. Still this does not prevent us leaving the EU on the basis of the above DS and FRS. There are enough ‘mini deals’ in place – covering visa-free travel, aircraft landing, rail and shipping agreements, road haulage licences, student exchanges, defence and security etc – for the citizens and businesses of both the UK and EU to continue visiting and trading with each other. In addition, a sufficient number of the international trade deals negotiated by the EU have been novated that we can continue trading on the same terms with most of these countries as we do now. A key example is Switzerland which accounts for more than a quarter of our trade under these EU-negotiated deals.

But unless the strategy is clear about what is needed to deliver these outcomes, we will soon be back wading through the same treacle of compromise and capitulation that have been the hallmark of our negotiations over the last two years. The only strategy that is guaranteed to work by 31st October is the non-cooperative one outlined above.

The new Prime Minister also needs to demonstrate conviction and commitment – and that involves putting Parliament in its place

A credible negotiating strategy is necessary, but this will not be sufficient. The new Prime Minister also needs to have ‘conviction and commitment’, as Dominic Raab has pointed out. But Boris Johnson – the front runner to be PM – has already wavered by first stating categorically that the UK will leave the EU by 31st October and subsequently saying that this is merely ‘eminently feasible’. This change was immediately picked up by EU negotiators, one of whom told The Times: ‘Even the boldest Prime Minister for a no-deal will have to demonstrate that he has had one serious try and that means an extension [beyond 31 October]’. Another told the Daily Mail that the EU believes Johnson will end up trying to sell an amended version of the WA: ‘If people really brief Boris and talk him through the implications of ‘no deal’, I think he will really think twice’. The first view is perfectly plausible and, unless further wavering is prevented, then we are very likely to end up with the second. After all, Johnson supported the Withdrawal Agreement on the third vote. Hunt voted for it three times. Johnson’s declared position, however, is that he is seeking a FTA with the EU and clarified that he will leave the EU by the end of October ‘do or die’.

The new PM also needs to demonstrate conviction and commitment with the other group trying to block Brexit: the British Parliament. It too needs a lesson in democracy. Read our lips: we voted to leave the EU in June 2016 by a bigger majority than any vote that any individual MP has ever received. We understood the decision we made. We understood why we made it. No amount of scaremongering by the majority of MPs who oppose this decision or their friends in the civil service and CBI etc will change this.

So if MPs are still determined to block the deal that the next PM sets or try to insist that the deal is put to a ‘confirmatory vote’ – weasel words for a second referendum to try and get Brexit reversed – then they also need to be blocked. They need to be made to understand that it is the people who are sovereign not MPs. And the people are here for ever, they are not.

If this, in turn, means that Parliament is prorogued until after 31 October 2019, then so be it. Constitutional historians like Professor Jonathan Clark argue that this would not be ‘“unconstitutional”:

‘[It] would be in accord with statute law, but applied in a situation that legislators could not foresee. [Nor] would [it] be “undemocratic”, for the point at issue is the clash between two sorts of democracy, representative and direct. Whatever the merits of these two, Parliament recognised the priority of the People in legislating for the referendum of 2016. Parliament’s claim to control prerogative depends also on public opinion, and support has ebbed away as Brexit has not been delivered’.

However, prorogation might not be necessary since, in June 2019, Parliament voted down a Labour motion to block a no-deal Brexit. Indeed,Maddy Thimont Jackfrom the Institute of Government argues that MPs have no decisive route – such as legally binding backbench motions, emergency debates, amendments to the Queen’s Speech, or ‘no confidence’ votes – to stop a PM determined from leaving the EU on 31st October.

Only a credible non-cooperative strategy executed with ruthless conviction and commitment by the new Prime Minister will get us out of the EU by 31st October

The message needs to be clear, simple, with no compromises. Theresa May said in her resignation speech outside No. 10 that the next Prime Minister must compromise. Well just look where that got her. Time’s up for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Only a credible non-cooperative strategy that cannot be blocked by either the EU or Parliament will get us out of the EU by 31st October. And that strategy needs to be executed with ruthless conviction and commitment by the new Prime Minister. Given that both Johnson and Hunt have voted for the WA, the new PM would need to signal his conviction and commitment by appointing a Brexit Secretary who refused to vote for the WA on all three occasions. To demonstrate his support for Global Britain, his first trip abroad should be to the US to kick-start the UK-US Free Trade Agreement. There is no need to make another round of humiliating visits to Brussels or to Europe’s capitals – as Theresa May repeatedly did.

This is an extended version of a blog originally posted on Briefings for Brexit

In the aftermath of Parliament’s rejection of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, there is a way forward for the Government which allows a smooth transition into a No Deal scenario after 29th March, if found necessary, and then allows the UK to negotiate its desired comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU without having to impose tariffs or quotas in the interim. There is a mechanism to ‘manage’ a No Deal scenario; one that works within existing WTO rules, and that is not widely known about.

This is essentially an alternate transition or interim period, but within WTO rules without having to levy tariffs or (arguably) pay membership fees to the EU, but requiring some customs forms levied on the 7% of UK businesses (400,000 out of 5.7 million UK private registered businesses) that actually trade with the EU. This is the deal with the EU used by China, the USA, India, Australia and New Zealand for example.

These recommendations are based on my nearly ten years of experience as a member of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, working on EU trade deals such as those with Canada, New Zealand, India, South Korea, Japan and Columbia/Peru, and drawing on high level discussions I have had with senior trade representatives for the EU and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In the event of No Deal, there is a strong case to maintain preferential tariff and quota rates at zero between the UK and the EU for a limited period – thought to be around two years. There are a number of arguments for exemptions to what are termed ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) rules, which require the same treatment in terms of tariff rates and treatment between WTO members to avoid discrimination. They are:

1) It is to the advantage of fellow WTO members to minimise disruption between our two large markets, which would reduce knock-on impacts to their imports/exports to the UK or EU markets. WTO members have to show financial harm to justify objections to practices (or tariff schedules). Civitas calculate that £13 billion of tariffs would have to be levied on EU goods entering the UK and £5 billion on UK goods entering the EU Single Market if standard tariffs are levied under No Deal. This is one justification for keeping preferential rates of tariffs for a period whilst a full trade deal is finalised.

2) There are exemptions under National Security grounds such as over the issue of Northern Ireland, which the IEA have argued as a case for an exemption, but this is less appealing given its association with US and Russian cases for exemptions, such as over US tariffs on Chinese steel.

3) Exemptions to ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) rules under Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947. This appears to be the most substantive argument. WTO rules state that preferential benefits, such as tariffs and quotas for goods which are more favourable than MFN treatment, may only be extended to another country if it is part of a customs union or a free trade area. The ultimate legal authority to grant such preferences is Article 24 of GATT , incorporated into the WTO regime when that body commenced operations in 1995.

Article 24 is helpfully the ultimate basis in international law for the existence of the EU itself as a preferential trading bloc, which grants preferential treatment to its members within the Customs Union.

If the UK accepts Donald Tusk’s offer of a free trade agreement along the lines of CETA+++ or what I propose as ‘SuperCanada’, then the UK and EU will be in the process of moving towards creating a free trade area – Tusk has offered a tariff and quota free deal plus services (whilst leaving the EU Customs Union) – so qualifies under this criterion.

There are two under-appreciated aspects of Article 24 which have direct relevance to our situation, and which provide reassurance.

Firstly, Article 24, para 3 states:

The provisions of this Agreement [i.e. the requirement to extend MFN treatment equally to all] shall not be construed to prevent:

(a) Advantages accorded by any contracting party to adjacent countries in order to facilitate frontier traffic

This has direct relevance to the position of Northern Ireland, and our adjacent country of Ireland. Some commentators have claimed that a sensitive and appropriate management of trade which respects and upholds both the letter and the spirit of, for example, the Good Friday Agreement would be in some form an unauthorised infringement of MFN treatment. That claim is clearly untrue.

There is also no obligation under WTO rules to erect a so-called “hard border” on 29th March. Government may continue discussions with our counterparts in Dublin to arrive at adequate and effective technological measures for the management of trade with minimal friction. You will have noticed the encouraging signs that the Irish Government already appreciates this fact. (See, for example, “Ireland has no plans for hard border after Brexit, says Varadkar”, from The Guardian of 21st December 2018)

We can expect that there will be considerable international sympathy for measures which support the situation in Northern Ireland, and hence a reluctance on the part of third countries to lodge objections. Although given the sensitivities this should not be stressed too heavily, such an exemption falls into ‘National Security’ related actions.

Secondly, Article 24 not only authorises member states to operate lower/zero tariff free trade agreements, it also permits them to offer lower/zero tariffs pre-emptively during the course of negotiations. The relevant provision, Article 24 para 5, is worth quoting at length, with emphasis added to the critical wording:

Accordingly, the provisions of this Agreement shall not prevent, as between the territories of contracting parties, the formation of… a free-trade area or the adoption of an interim agreement necessary for the formation of… a free-trade area; Provided that:…

(b) with respect to a free-trade area, or an interim agreement leading to the formation of a free-trade area, the duties and other regulations of commerce maintained in each of the constituent territories and applicable at the formation of such free–trade area or the adoption of such interim agreement to the trade of contracting parties not included in such area or not parties to such agreement shall not be higher or more restrictive than the corresponding duties and other regulations of commerce existing in the same constituent territories prior to the formation of the free-trade area, or interim agreement as the case may be; and

(c) any interim agreement referred to in subparagraph… (b) shall include a plan and schedule for the formation of such… a free-trade area within a reasonable length of time.

(A WTO declaration, the Understanding on the Interpretation of Article 24, 1994, clarifies that the ‘reasonable period of time’ in para 5(c) will generally taken to be no more than 10 years.) I estimate based on EU trade deals to date, that a UK-EU comprehensive Free Trade Agreement could take around two years, especially given the unique reality that the UK is starting from a convergent position with the EU, with zero tariffs and quotas and with our laws and standards currently harmonised.

If, before 29 March, the UK has reached an ‘interim agreement’ with the EU to pursue negotiations towards a comprehensive free trade deal, both sides would be permitted under WTO rules to continue with the present zero tariff/zero quota trading arrangements. There would be no disruption to the man or woman on the high street. No Deal would mean No Change, as the cost of goods would not go up.

In the present situation the ‘interim agreement’ would not have to be an extensive document running to hundreds of pages. The schedule of items covered by the negotiations would be all goods, as already envisaged in our discussions with the EU. The plan which the document sets out would have to amount to little more than a timetable for regular meetings and an ultimate deadline, some years hence, by which point negotiations will have to be concluded.

An ‘interim agreement’, then, need be little more than an agreement to continue talks – while also continuing zero-tariff and zero-quota trade on both sides – plus a deadline no later than 29th March 2029. I accept that the EU has so far declined to agree any deadlines (other than 29th March) but since the absence of a final cut-off point has been a major contributing reason for Parliament’s rejection of the Draft Withdrawal Agreement, perhaps the EU will now reassess that stance.

Whilst legal challenges at WTO level might be expected from an unhelpful member, the reality is that any such challenge is unlikely to get to the WTO ‘court’ – its appellate body – for at least two years and possibly longer, and only if that body finds the UK non-compliant would any compensating actions be authorised such as tariffs. This is within WTO rules, and if any challenges arise a fully compliant Free Trade Agreement should already be in place by the time any appellate body were to meet. The EU is now under extreme pressure from EU27 industry and commerce who enjoy a £96 billion surplus with the UK.

You will recall that the draft Political Declaration indicates the EU want to reach a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the UK on the basis of zero tariffs and quotas (see paras 17, page 5, and para 23, page 6) and extending to services (para 29, page 7). Those provisions are fully in line with numerous public statements made since the 2016 referendum by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, and Michel Barnier, European Chief Negotiator – offering a CETA+++, or what I term a ‘SuperCanada’ trade deal, on 7th March 2018, 30th August and 6th October 2018.

This approach would continue the pre-29th March status quo in trading arrangements and patterns without interruption, justified by an explicit provision of the WTO regime. The possible grounds on which any third country could lodge an objection to this are extremely slight (unlike for schedule changes).

An ‘interim agreement’ would therefore be an important component of a ‘Managed No Deal’ outcome from 29th March. It permits trade between us and the EU to continue without tariffs or quotas under No Deal while creating a space for negotiations to be reset and recommenced on the basis of reaching a SuperCanada or CETA+++ trade treaty.

I urge the Government to now adopt this course of action, as it will mitigate the main impacts of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit and eliminate the task of having to assess and charge tariff rates on 19,753 MFN tariffs under the EU Customs Union, thereby substantially reducing friction at borders.

The current political turmoil and constitutional crisis has so many twists and turns that it makes House of Cards look pedestrian.

Of course the real issue comes down to what happens when – rather than if – the proposed deal is voted down on tomorrow, 11th December (or even dropped).

Here there is a clear gap opening up between media reports and hard legal reality – what the actual effects are of the political manoeuvring of Dominic Grieve, Sir Keir Starmer and their merry conniving bands. There have been desperate media reports that ‘no deal’ is off the table, when it is actually remains the ‘default position’ as Andrea Leadsom told Radio 4 just last week.

Let’s assume Conservative MPs think there is enough turkey on Christmas menus not to be part of the required two-thirds majority needed to vote for a General Election, and that the EU have indeed ruled out any major renegotiation.

The bottom line is that the various options being desperately pushed by those who want ‘anything but a true Brexit’ are just not viable. There is:

‘Norway Plus’ – even worse that the slavish EEA, which adds back membership of the customs union, thereby killing all future UK trade deals, and with no control of immigration, no say over EU laws, and large payments;

A ‘Second Referendum’ – with its totally confused offer: ‘tell us if this final 2,000-page deal is better than staying in the EU when we’ve already left. Oh, and by the way you will have to join the euro and lose the rebate’. Pointless too in that Leave is predicted to win again; or

Extending Article 50 to allow more muddle time – which will either mess up the EU by landing the Brexit issue right in the middle of European Parliament elections in May or mess up all the groups, chairmanships and procedures of the European Parliament in the farcical situation of British MEPs being elected for a few months.

But all such amendments to the motion are not legally binding anyway – they can only be advisory. They might bring political pressure, but they do not have legal effect. As the Commons Chief Clerk, Sir David Natzler, confirmed: whatever MPs vote on by way of motion “has no statutory significance”, as they do not constitute “a vote on whether to accept or reject no deal.” That requires new legislation. The actual law – in the EU Withdrawal Act – states clearly that we will leave on 29th March 2019.

Given that reality, and bearing in mind how rash it is to try to indicate a way forward in this maelstrom, this is what I propose now as the best next steps:

1) Assuming the vote fails on 11th December, or is put off, I believe the Government should make a statement immediately saying that preparations for a ‘no deal’ option – better called a ‘Clean Global Brexit’ or ‘World Trade Deal’ – will go into SuperDrive. Sorry, but defer Christmas!

Where there’s a will, there’s a way: in the Falklands War, the Ministry of Defence managed to put together a task force of 100 ships in just 48 hours. We can manage this process, and thousands of civil servants have been on the case for years. Like the Millennium Bug, claims of Armageddon and planes falling out the sky gave way to nothing happening on 1st January 2000.

2) The UK should then go back to Brussels, not to renegotiate this current draft Withdrawal Agreement, but to agree a pared-down, bare bones emergency series of bilateral agreements covering only the essential ‘must haves’: aviation, customs, citizens’ rights, medical products, European Investment Bank assets etc. The beauty of this is that if one agreement falls, then the others are not lost. The DUP’s Arlene Foster has proposed bilaterals. These bilaterals could be agreed by Westminster and the EU by March, and would any sane MP or MEP dare to seek to derail any such vital preparation in these circumstances? They should hold all further Westminster business, such as the Immigration and Trade bills, that may be hijacked.

3) The UK should also formally advise the EU that it wishes to accept the offer made not once but three times by the EU: that of a SuperCanada/CETA+++ Free Trade Agreement with 100% tariff- and quota-free access to the EU Single Market plus comprehensive services (first offered by Donald Tusk on 7th March), and which we could start negotiating from the day we become a ‘third country’ – 30th March next year.

We can build on the three pages on trade in the more appealing draft Political Declaration, but drop all notion of a ‘Single Customs Territory’ – the UK must firmly leave the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market. We are in a unique position to negotiate an FTA fast – as all our laws are convergent at present and we don’t have to spend years wrangling over which tariffs to keep or get rid of, as others do.

4) Having initiated moves to agree a SuperCanada FTA, the UK and EU can now jointly notify the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that in the light of working to agree a comprehensive FTA and future Political Declaration, we are invoking Article 24 of GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).

This is important because Article 24 allows us to maintain the same tariff-free access to both our markets without breaching WTO discriminatory Most Favoured Nation (MFN) laws. Article 24 allows “an interim agreement leading to a formation of a free trade area” and allows “a reasonable length of time” – up to 10 years – to negotiate it.

So, we whilst we will need customs declarations under WTO, we will be able to maintain the same zero tariffs as now with the EU – the free trade area will remain. EU exporters to the UK would save £13 billion in tariffs (and our consumers too) and UK exporters £5 billion. We will also be free to lower tariffs for other trading partners as we wish – something specifically excluded in the Backstop. Nor should there be any Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) either under WTO agreements.

We can also enact the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement which recently came into force that obliges the EU27 to adopt measures like authorised economic operators (trusted traders), which are part of the solution for the Northern Ireland border issue along with electronic declarations and remote checks away from the border.

5) As a sign of Britain’s free trade intent, we can now immediately initiate full and unfettered negotiations with international trade partners such as the USA, China and India, without these deals being torpedoed by being tied into the EU Customs Union, Chequers or the Backstop. The picture would be clear at last, and not be delayed by unending years of transition. Similarly, we will seek to build on current work to ‘roll over’ the benefits and obligations of existing EU trade deals such as that with South Korea.

6) So, on 30th March the UK can be cleanly out of the European Union and back into the world, with an acceptable and managed World Trade Deal option in place, free of years more wrangling over transitional arrangements, cost demands, alternative models and heightened business uncertainty – and with negotiations underway for a closer SuperCanada trade deal. We can reallocate much of the £39 billion payment lost by the EU to compensate UK-based companies legally in terms of R&D, regional aid and transport infrastructure – helping to stimulate our economy.

Like an operation we know needs doing, let us get on with the surgery quickly and speed up the recovery process.

This is indeed a Clean Global Brexit. Brexit could be over in a few months, rather than drag on for years on end.

And, for all our sakes – both Remainer and Brexiteer – let’s just get it done.